I tried to use the atyfb on my Mach64, and came across the
`atyfb: Unknown mach64 0xffff' thing that I have since come
across in various places in the kernel archives, dating back to
December 1998. In one of those posts I found a patch against
2.2.2a, by a Dan Hopper dating May 1999, where he explains the
problem and proposes a solution; I modified the patch for 2.2.13
and it seems to initialize my card:
-
DBH atyfb_init: loc1, addr = 0xe0000000
DBH atyfb_init: loc2, info->ati_regbase_phys = 0xe07ffc00
DBH atyfb_init: loc2, info->ati_regbase = 0xc2802c00
DBH atyfb_init: loc4, info->frame_buffer_phys = 0xe0000000
DBH atyfb_init: loc4, info->frame_buffer = 0xc2804000
atyfb: mach64GX (ATI888GX00) [0x00d7 rev 0x01] 2M DRAM, 14.31818 MHz XTAL, 135 MHz PLL, 50 Mhz MCLK
-
(I found the patch at http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9905.2/1056.html)
but I didn't get to see this output, because my screen went
blank, as if the video card had entered an invalid mode. The card
didn't lock up or anything, I was able to log in and dmesg>q for
viewing later. I'm probably just missing a command-line
parameter, but I have no idea what parameters atyfb takes, as I
have not been able to decipher atyfb.c (cf. vesafb.c, which is
pretty clear--possibly because I read it _after_ the docs, but
then there aren't any for the atyfb).
So:
Have any of the people who previously reported problems
with this driver been able to find a solution? If so,
is this documented anywhere? Should I have known?
if no,
Is there any reason for this driver to have fallen into
such disrepair? Here is a problem dating back nearly a
year, with a solution apparently at hand, several people
reporting it, requesting (pretty please) a fix, offering
themselves as alphatesters, and suggesting (nicely) that
documentation would be a Very Good Thing. In fact, it's
been around so long that the videocard is totally
outdated, witness is the fact I have it...
Heck, if somebody could throw me a line here, I could probably
end up writing some kind of docs myself!
-- John Lenton (john@piquillin.fis.uncor.edu) -- Random fortune: I told my kids, "Someday, you'll have kids of your own." One of them said, "So will you." -- Rodney Dangerfield- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/